John Wubbenhorst

Born November 28, 1957, in Norwalk, Connecticut, John Wubbenhorst first explored guitar and piano before shifting focus to the metal alto flute. Instruction from Juilliard’s Kim Haley and composition lessons with Darius Brubeck guided his early development. At age fifteen he attended the Berklee College of Music summer program, where exposure to East Indian ragas and the spiritual folkloric traditions of the Pacific Rim reshaped his musical direction. Subsequent studies took him to the University of Iowa under Roger Mather, then to Maharishi International University in Iowa, and later to the Washington, D.C., area during the 1980s, where he practiced alongside Indian musicians steeped in their regional traditions. In 1992 he relocated to India to train with bansuri and transverse flute master Hariprasad Chaurasia, devoting the next two years exclusively to the wood flute under that guidance. He accompanied his teacher to Rotterdam in 1995 for further work together. After returning to the United States and settling in Fairfax, Virginia, Wubbenhorst expanded his approach to world and ethnic fusion, incorporating classical and chamber repertoire, modern jazz and fusion, new-age elements, and an expanded palette of ethnic rhythms and melodies. Among the artists with whom he has collaborated are Paul Horn, Paul McCandless, Howard Levy, Larry Coryell, Sandip Burman, Jack DeJohnette, Paul Bollenback, and Dave Pietro.